


Our Lady

by Anastasie Elise (IzzyBells)



Series: These Vampires Are Technically Antiques [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Blood and Gore, Caterine's origin story, Exploring Sexuality, F/F, Historical Inaccuracy, Vampire Bites, Vampire Turning, Vampires, failed hanging, this gets gnarly for a bit sorry, yes i do have abandonment issues how could you tell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:15:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29138409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IzzyBells/pseuds/Anastasie%20Elise
Summary: “Hm. What prospects are there for a midwife, anyway?”“Well…I’m not sure.”“You’ve never considered it?”“No, my La—“With a huff, Constance shook her head, balancing the Princess in one arm to flap her hand at Caterine. “Stop that, you’re my friend.”“As you wish.”
Relationships: Caterine/Constance, Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Series: These Vampires Are Technically Antiques [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2055990
Kudos: 3





	Our Lady

**Author's Note:**

> written 2021 (wow isn't that neat). Caterine becomes a vampire. these named figures are real people btw, except for Caterine. i was on french wikipedia for this. TW: there's a hanging that goes wrong

Usually, the birth of a baby was accompanied by screams of the infant and mother. That fateful time, Caterine heard only the mournful wailing of Bertha of Burgundy, Queen of the Franks, as she held her stillborn son. The King drove Caterine and her teacher away with shouts and threats, as if the dead baby was the fault of the midwife and not the shared blood between him and his wife. Her teacher, a wrinkled old woman with the cleanest hands and sternest voice Caterine had ever known, waved off Robert’s anger once they were out of his sight.

“His issue is with God Almighty, not us, Cat. We go on doing our work and he won’t do a thing to us,” she said.

Caterine was 21. It was an honor to work with the court’s midwife and learn from her the trade, especially coming from nothing and nowhere the way she did. Women would always need midwives, no matter how many men cursed them, the old midwife always said, finality and unshakable surety in her tone. She didn’t say it for much longer; her death came months later. It was unrelated to King Robert II. At 21, Caterine became the midwife for the House of Capet.

The union with Bertha of Burgundy didn’t last more than another year or two, and there were no more births until Robert married Constance of Arles. Caterine saw the first of Queen Constance’s children into the world in the year 1003, doing her best to soothe the younger woman through the experience. The details of the event were fuzzy. Her hand on sweat-slick skin, a thigh, a shoulder, a brow. Perhaps she used more care than she should have, for the Queen never looked at her the same afterwards. Constance, with her Southern oddities, didn’t have many friends, and that may have been why she tried in earnest to make a friend of Caterine, the one who was gentle with her during her greatest pain. It was strange, but what protest could Caterine make when the Queen requested her presence for companionship, so long as she didn’t have other duties to attend to?

“You’re not married, are you?” the young Queen asked, cradling the little infant Princess delicately in her arms; Constance looked like a child with a doll, to Caterine’s eyes.

“No, my Lady.”

Constance frowned, considering Caterine. “But you’re old, aren’t you?”

“I—I am of 25 years, my Lady. I wouldn’t consider that old.”

“Hm. What prospects are there for a midwife, anyway?”

“Well…I’m not sure.”

“You’ve never considered it?”

“No, my La—“

With a huff, Constance shook her head, balancing the Princess in one arm to flap her hand at Caterine. “Stop that, you’re my friend.”

“As you wish.”

By force, it seemed, Caterine became a confidant of the Queen of the Franks. She listened dutifully to the gossip Constance picked up, scoffed appropriately at whatever rumors about the Queen reached her queenly ears, learned more about King Robert’s private affairs than she ever wanted to know, and endured the banter at her own expense. When Advisa (“God, I hate the name Hedwig. I know it’s his grandmother’s name but my choice is much prettier, don’t you agree?”) wasn’t occupying Constance’s hands, they were creating their own excuses to find themselves touching Caterine. The Queen would clasp her hand to emphasize a point, rest on her arm as she laughed, brush away invisible lint, smooth nonexistent creases in her skirt fabric. She was unusually fond of playing with Caterine’s hair, darker gold and twice as thick as her own. She’d braid it, pin it up, and tuck jewels in it, only to take it all out and comb it through again. Even as that year wore on, and then another, and she grew older and matured, Constance treated Caterine as a closer and closer friend, asking her to lounge with her when she was feeling tired or poorly, take Advisa on walks with her around the gardens, dine with her when she wasn’t dining with the King. 

Caterine didn’t have the station to deny Constance anything. When her Queen asked, one winter evening, if Caterine had ever been with a man, unmarried as she was, Caterine answered truthfully that she had not. Wasn’t she curious? Did she imagine it? Caterine answered—well. She wasn’t curious. Men had never interested her, not when they belittled her trade, beat their wives, whined about not receiving a son, and blamed exhausted and barely-conscious women for creating daughters. Besides, she had never interested men. They tended to feel threatened, in her experience, by a woman who held the life and death of their children in her hands.

Queen Constance shifted in her chair. They were sitting on either side of her personal chamber’s fireplace, and the popping logs filled a momentary silence. “Wouldn’t you like to know what you’re missing?” she asked. “Maybe you wouldn’t be so quick to swear off men if you knew the things they could make you feel, you know.”

“I don’t think I need to know what men can do,” Caterine answered, shaking her head. “I’m sure whatever it is, it is done selfishly.”

“What if a woman did to you what men do?” Constance blurted.

Caterine blinked, meeting her Queen’s suddenly intense gaze. She took a breath. Then another. And then another, as if she had been so surprised that her body had forgotten to breathe on its own. “I don’t know.” It was all she could think to say.

The Queen bit her lip, looking, for perhaps the first time Caterine had ever known, just a little unsure of herself. “What if I did it?”

Sitting there in the flickering glow of the fireplace, Caterine considered many things. She considered Constance, mostly. 19, now, a younger age than Caterine was when she lost the only parent figure she knew. And Caterine was 27, eight years her senior, and by all accounts the one who should have more sense. But by station, she couldn’t deny her Queen anything. She couldn’t tell whether Constance asked only because she had applicable experience or because she wanted to—…what? Caterine didn’t even know. No, she knew, theoretically; she understood the action of intercourse. What was there that two women could do without a man?

“As you wish.”

Kissing the Queen of the Franks was not something Caterine had ever thought possible, yet there she was doing it. It felt good, better than she expected. The details got fuzzy, again, but the feeling of warmth, like her chest was about to burst into rays of sunlight, was clear and distinct. Something fell into place, that winter night, that Caterine didn’t know was disconnected until it suddenly wasn’t. She could feel relaxed with her Queen, after they laid together, and she, too, took every chance she could get to feel her skin against Constance’s, even if it was only a brush of their hands. It was such a small step to go from Queen Constance’s confidant to Queen Constance’s secret mistress. Robert tolerated Caterine’s increasingly frequent presence; after all, it was wise to keep the midwife close to advise the Queen on best practices for the quick conception of the next royal heir. 

For a year or more, they were lovers, and when Constance fell pregnant again, she wanted Caterine even more. She couldn’t stand the touch of her husband, she claimed. She felt disgusting, and it was his fault. Caterine’s touch soothed, she insisted. So Caterine announced it was safer for the baby if the King and Queen abstain for the time being, and Constance covered her body with kisses in return. This time, Caterine was fully aware of how she was soothing the Queen during the birth—soothing was perhaps the wrong word, but she helped. A final cry, and a son was born. King Robert II was overjoyed. Queen Constance only had eyes for her newborn boy, except for the snuck glances to Caterine.

Almost as soon as Constance was on her feet and appearing in court again, the gossip and whispered displeasure about her returned. One evening, Constance returned from a meal with Robert, her step sharp, her mouth set in a harsh line. Her fist shook when she lifted an arm to point with one finger in the direction from where she had come, too livid to form words for a moment.

“He tells me—he tells me his friend suggested I be—ugh—cast off, or done away with! I’m too Provincial to raise the next King of the Franks—and he—Robert—he was laughing!”

Caterine held back a scoff. “What was he laughing at?”

“I don’t—“ Constance moved as if to run her hand through her hair, but stopped before she disturbed to veil pinned around her head. “The notion, he was laughing at the notion. I think.”

“It is laughable, isn’t it? You, deposed for a culture and manner others aren’t accustomed to?”

Breathing heavily, Constance collapsed into a chair. “Laughable, yes. Still...I don’t like threats about me made directly to my husband.”

The man’s murder was discovered perhaps a month later. Caterine, for the first time, felt the hair on the back of her neck raise and her gut sour when she saw the confidence in her Queen’s smile. Had it always looked so arrogant? She knew the men suspected were connected to Constance through some sort of family tie. Either her relations took it upon themselves to deal with the problem, or it was Constance herself who requested the action, and the latter was certainly a worrying thought. It would be wise not to cross her, though of course Caterine didn’t plan on it. The rest of court didn’t seem to catch on. Nasty sentiments continued to circulate about the unmannered and improper ways of Queen Constance, all building to the conclusion that she was an embarrassment of a mother for the heir of the Franks. Perhaps this was why Constance took up a more visible devotion to Catholicism. Unfortunately, this only turned the rumor mill again, this time with its target on Caterine herself.

“Someone called me a pagan whore this afternoon,” Constance reported one day, and, “I heard we were both brides of the Devil this morning,” she reported the next.

Constance tolerated this at first with her usual cavalier approach. She laughed as she dismissed what people said, her security in her rank unshakeable. Because of her Queen, Caterine, too, tried to brush off the gossip as best as she could. Things only took a turn after Constance became pregnant for the third time. She cried more than once in Caterine’s arms, each time ending in the suddenly furious Queen shoving Caterine out the door. She attended more masses, spent more nights with Robert so that the servants could see, and avoided being seen speaking to Caterine so frequently in public.

A full month passed without Constance so much as even looking at Caterine, and then she found herself ripped from her bed one night by armed castle guards and thrown in a dungeon cell for two days. When she was brought bewildered before the King, Robert looked at her with hard eyes, any acquaintanceship he shared with her forgotten or sealed away. The Queen, now heavily with child, faced her with what was perhaps guilt before turning her eyes away. It was a trial, of sorts. Caterine couldn’t remember most of what was said. Something about witchcraft, not an uncommon accusation for midwives, and her case was definitely not helped by sleeping with the Queen. Evil seduction by Caterine, supposedly. Even though Constance had made the first move, in the beginning. Unnatural acts and taking command over death. Words, words, words. The Church. Stealing sons. Magic potions and spells. All ridiculous, but politically useful to give the Queen a better image, if she was turning in the witch who had seduced her with black magic.

She was to be hanged in a few days, and then her body was to be burnt at the stake for good measure. Back to the cell in the meantime. Laughter—she laughed at King Robert II’s verdict, laughed as the guards hauled her away, laughed to herself in her cell. It was laughable, the whole situation, the accusations they piled on her to make Queen Constance palatable, pitiable, a victim, and fit after all to be a Queen Mother. Caterine could only laugh, left with nothing else. It was shock, she realized centuries later, once the psychology of trauma was better understood, that made her laugh in the face of her own undeserved death. The mad cackling probably solidified her image as the Devil-worshipping witch at the time, but Constance’s betrayal really did break something in her that didn’t heal until decades later.

When the dust-skinned woman came to her cell, Caterine was still laughing. Her hair was like cobwebs and her eyes were like coal, and when she spoke her voice sounded like the stale wind that blows through a damp crypt: “You delight me, child,” the woman wheezed, “and if you’ll accept it, I’ll give you a gift to rattle their bones right out of their skins!”

Barely suppressing her giggles, Caterine nodded, and immediately held out her hand, reaching through the iron bars of her cage. Faster than the blink of an eye, the woman snatched Caterine’s arm in a powdery grip and pulled it to her face, grinning ear to ear. Caterine caught the flash of needle-sharp teeth before the woman bit into the soft skin of her wrist, licking at the sudden blood between her jaws with a limply fluttering tongue. A gasp of pain, and then Caterine dissolved into her hysterics again, even as she felt more and more lightheaded. The dust-skinned woman fixed her twinkling, beady little eyes on Caterine as the world started to go hazy, then dark, until she finally knew nothing at all.

When she woke, she didn’t laugh at first, not even a chuckle. Her head hurt, and her whole body felt as if it were covered in a rash or a burn from the sun, itchy and sore and burning just a little. Her arm stung. When she looked down, she realized why: her entire lower arm was a mangled mess of ripped flesh. It should’ve hurt much more than it really did, but all Caterine felt at that moment was deeply, inexplicably thirsty. Or hungry. Something. On the other side of the bars, sitting cross-legged with her back against the stone wall of the corridor, the dust-skinned woman watched. As Caterine raised her hand to touch her wounds, the woman let out a wheezing cough.

“Careful,” she hissed. “It’s already healing. Mustn’t break it open again!”

Caterine dropped her hand. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Her lungs were empty, and it hurt to take a breath, like there was a tight belt trying to keep her ribs still. “What did you do?”

“Made you in my image, child; I remade you into something better than men. You’ll frighten them well!”

“How? What does that mean?” Caterine questioned, sitting up more fully.

The woman’s coal eyes sparkled. “They won’t be able to kill you when they try!” she whispered, voice almost whistling through her teeth. “They can try and try, but you’re better than all of them! You can’t drown! You can’t die! You already are dead!”

Her lungs. They didn’t move on their own anymore. “What do you mean?” she repeated, mouth dry.

“I killed you, I killed you!” The woman laughed, though it was mostly wheezing and coughing. “I killed you dead and brought you back again! Just a little sacrifice a day to keep you on your feet, and you’ll walk forever!”

“What?” Caterine shook her head. “What? You—what?”

Rising to her feet, still laughing quietly, the woman and her cobweb hair ambled away, leaving Caterine stuck trying to decide if she needed to breathe or not. The clunk of armor snapped her attention away from that question as a guard now approached. She could see his clear grimace as he took in her gnawed lower arm, but he unlocked the door all the same. As soon as his hand was on her upper arm, Caterine felt her body, aching and stiff though it was, begin to shake again, and her belly quaked with her previous laughter, even though her ribs were having trouble keeping up. By the time they were at the gallows, she was back to her full hysterics, looking for all the world like a woman gone insane, and she didn’t stop even as they slipped the noose over her head. She didn’t stop when the support went out from under her feet, and though her neck should’ve snapped, it didn’t. Hanging there, swinging gently back and forth, Caterine laughed and laughed and laughed.

The sky was overcast, all gray with rolling clouds, but even still, as a shocked murmur spread through the square of onlookers, she felt her skin tingle as if she were stuck in full sun. It tickled, and she laughed all the more, wriggling in the air to try and relieve the sensation. Shocked murmurs turned to panicked outcries as her body began to smoke, flesh crisping. She couldn’t stop laughing; wasn’t it too funny? Above, the clouds parted for an instant as the winds carried them across the sky, letting the sunlight down to the execution scene. The rays passed over the onlookers, terror fixing them all to where they each stood, and moved up over Caterine. Her body burst into flame. The fire ate her ragged dungeon-stained clothing, licked over her limbs, snagged in her hair. Too funny, it was too funny. She’d burn before they even got her body to the stake! 

Finally the hangman moved to cut her down; she clearly wasn’t going to die anytime soon, and she expected they’d want to stop the fire from spreading. She rolled on the ground, clutching her gut, ribs and cheeks aching. Water was thrown over her, then more water, and more, until the fire was put out, and still she was struck lame by her hysterics. Not a soul moved to collect her, take her back to her cell, take her to a doctor, take her to a priest, by God. That old hag was right. What a fright she gave them all. It was such a trick! What fun. 

It was what they deserved, after all, wasn’t it? Accusing her of witchcraft and seducing Queen Constance. Constance seduced her! Didn’t she? It wasn’t Caterine who made that first suggestion. This was Constance’s fault. It was Constance who was to blame for all of this. Constance who didn’t care until she had a man killed. Constance who couldn’t address the consequences of her choices and face Caterine herself. Constance who told her no one would judge the Queen of the Franks, so favoring Caterine wouldn’t matter. Nothing was supposed to happen. She was supposed to be protected in this. She trusted Constance. Had trusted Constance. Constance who betrayed her.

The laughter, at last, began to turn to sobs, though they were without tears. They were wailing sobs, the kind that you have to hiccup through to get another breath in and keep going. As she cried for the love she had lost, some in the crowd lost a bit of fear, and became emboldened. It seemed there was no threat now. Crying was a sign of grief, not madness, surely, and if a few men could just stomach the nauseating smell of burnt human flesh, they could bring her back to that cell, just until King Richard could decide what to do with her—

Someone touched her arm, tried to roll her over, and in a flash Caterine was lunging up at them, hands outstretched, lips twisted into an open snarl. A mere blink of the eye, and then she had her teeth sunk into the flesh of the man’s neck, jaw locked, and she drank down the blood that filled her mouth, fingers tightening into fists around the material of the man’s shirt. Hands grabbed at her shoulders, her arms, her waist, trying to pull her off, but a sweet feeling was spreading through her veins and buzzing in her head. Caterine let the man drop when his heart couldn’t pump anything more out of the wounds her needle sharp teeth made. She whirled on those surrounding her, a hiss leaving the back of her mouth like the most natural thing in the world. Another man fell to her bite. And another. Then a woman. She couldn’t even swallow anymore blood, and yet she continued on, ripping into a fifth victim’s throat and dropping him to bleed out onto the stones. People screamed. They ran. The executioner had no axe, as this was not supposed to be a beheading. The guards in their armor were too slow to touch her. An opening in the mass of fleeing bodies offered the chance to escape. Caterine took it. 

It wasn’t until she was away from the buildings and hidden amongst the trees outside the city that she stopped to take stock of her situation. Under the shelter of the leaf canopy, her skin had ceased to tingle all over with that sunburn feeling, though it was a barely noticeable difference under the itching from where she was blistered and charred. Her shift, the only layer left to her for dignity’s sake when she was locked away, was torn, burnt, and soaked in blood. What was she supposed to do now?

Well, she hoped Constance died giving birth to that next baby of hers. Maybe she’d regret framing her midwife mistress to save her own image, then. Caterine certainly wouldn’t be returning now.

Still feeling light from the fresh blood, and at the same time horribly faint from the pain and shock, Caterine decided it would be best to just lie down. She’d sleep. There would be time to decide what to do and where to go later. Much later. It would be a long sleep. Very long. Yes. She’d like to sleep for a very long time.

And she did. When Caterine woke, it was dark, and a layer of dust and leaves had accumulated over her body. Her skin was smooth and flawless, completely healed. She was, if she considered it, a bit peckish. Not hungry, precisely, but that floaty sort of full and satisfied feeling was completely gone. She stood, and was pleasantly surprised to feel not a hint of soreness or stiffness from sleeping on the ground for…hours? days? maybe weeks? It didn’t matter how long she’d slept, because she wasn’t missing anything back from where she came. That life had to be behind her. Somehow, she’d been given the gift of immortality—well, maybe, because it was possible she could have burned to death had no one put her out—and she was going to start over and make the most of it that she possibly could, more than an orphaned midwife’s apprentice could have ever hoped for.

Caterine started walking. Eventually she reached a road, carved with the wheels of wagons and carriages, and she followed it. When the sun began to rise, Caterine felt the direct rays singe her face and hands. She hid in the trees again, this time deliberately burying herself in the underbrush and leaf litter. She slept. When it was night, she woke, and returned to the road. An uncounted number of days and nights passed this way until she reached a village. She was dirty, and she was starving. 

Caterine faced a decision now that would affect how she lived from this point on: she could steal into the village, enter a house under the cover of darkness, slaughter and feed on whoever lived there, steal their clothes, and continue on her way; or, she could stumble in, rouse the whole village crying for help, and fool them all into treating her like some noblewoman victim of a highway robbery. If she took the first option, well, where would she go next? How many villages would she prey upon before she got tired and ran out of options? What kind of life would that be? No, Caterine would seize this chance. This was probably the land of some noble or aristocrat that she could perhaps stay with for a while. She’d spent over ten years at court, many of them by the Queen’s side; she could act the part of a noble herself, she was sure.

Who would she be? A lady, no one high up enough in the ranks to be known by anyone far from home. From Burgundy? Burgundy was locked in a power struggle, wasn’t it, and it would be understandable for nobles loyal to the Franks to seek peace away from their own land, especially if, say, she were a widow. Her late husband, God rest his soul, had died of a fever, hadn’t he, and there was naught left there for her but the land he had been granted, and that had never been her duty, had it, so surely she couldn’t be running it now after her husband’s untimely death. A steward could be running it, or maybe it had reverted to whatever duke was in charge of the land these days. She was grief-torn, and she never had a mind for politics, so she couldn’t be expected to remember these things, could she?

Yes. She was Lady Caterine—Lady Caterine Delacroix. That would be generic enough no one would think to look her up, surely. Lady Delacroix, her husband was a vassal with land in southern Burgundy, and he died of a fever this past winter, and she was traveling to stay with a friend in Orléans, but ruffians robbed her blind and took everything, and please, could someone help her?

So she did just that, knocking on doors, making herself frantic. She babbled pieces of her story to those who came out of their homes. A woman draped a thick wool blanket around her shoulders. A cup of wine was pressed into her shaking hands. Caterine pretended to sip it distractedly as the people discussed what to do. One man, a pillar of the community, it seemed, decided they would bring her up to the Lord’s estate. The Lord would help her. He was kind and generous, they told her, trying to speak in comforting tones. They brought her up the steps of a castle, after a bit of a walk, and pleaded with the man at the door to let Caterine enter. She willed it to work, looking into the eyes of the door guard. He nodded once and invited Caterine inside. The head of the house staff was summoned, an older woman with a slight hump to her back, and then the Lord himself was woken and brought to speak to this mysterious visitor who claimed to be a lady.

Archambaud II, Lord of Bourbon, was a handsome man, she supposed, tall, at least 10 years Caterine’s senior. It didn’t take much for him to believe her story. Actually, it was surprisingly easy; all she did was recount her tale, hoping he would accept it, and he did as quickly as the guard at the door. His wife, he said, would be more than happy to lend her a dress, and she could stay as his guest as long as she liked until she was ready to continue her journey to Orléans. 

His wife was roused. Her name was Philippine, and she led Caterine away to her personal suite in the castle, explaining as they walked that she was Archambaud’s second wife, and that his first three sons—who were still asleep, hopefully, though of course Caterine shouldn’t worry about the commotion—were from his first wife, Ermengarde, who had passed on two years prior, but that she had just had a son of her own four months ago. Philippine was young, younger than Caterine certainly, though maybe not younger than Constance. She was lovely, with a smile that brightened her whole face. Caterine politely avoided answering questions about herself and listened to Philippine chatter on as she rooted through trunks to find what had apparently been Ermengarde’s old wardrobe, as Philippine herself did not have dresses small enough for Caterine’s size. A servant was sent for a bath, and Caterine accepted the opportunity to enjoy a soak. 

There were no signs of the burns, not even patches of raw, new skin. Everything was as if she had never been through the attempted execution. Even the inside of her arm, where that dusty old woman had hacked away with her teeth, showed not even a hint of silvery scar. Only her pale skin, paler than she remembered being, covered all over with her golden hair. Once clean and dried, she dressed in the old gown, a little musty from being folded in a trunk, but fine materials all the same.

Caterine was hungry. It was her suspicion that she wouldn’t satisfy her hunger with food. She’d have to find someone who wouldn’t be missed. Little sacrifices to stay on her feet, just as the dusty-skinned woman had said. After she was shown her own chambers and left to herself, Caterine crept through the halls of the castle, looking for where the servants might sleep. She found the kitchens before she found the servant quarters, and there was one girl working at scrubbing a pile of dishes. 

“Excuse me,” Caterine said.

The girl startled. “Milady!” she sputtered. “I—I’m sorry, I—are you the Lord’s new guest?”

“Yes, I am. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“No, not at all!” the girl assured her, shaking her head. “Can I get anything for you, milady?”

Caterine eyed the gentle curve of the girl’s exposed neck. “Just a slice or two of bread please. I wouldn’t want to interrupt your duties.” She could almost see the girl’s pulse under the delicate skin, and there was the delectable, metallic tang of blood in her nose.

“Of course, yes, milday,” the girl said. 

Caterine sat on a stool at the table, and as the girl approached with a thick slice of white bread on a wooden plate, she realized she really could see her pulse. It was there, a rhythmic flutter on either side of the throat. If her own heart could beat, though Caterine realized quite early on that it no longer could, it would be pounding in her chest. She didn’t touch the bread, instead entirely focused on the girl’s back once she resumed her task. They both were silent while the girl finished the last of the washing and Caterine simply waited.

“I’ll be heading on to my bed now…milady?” the girl began, turning from the clean dishes. “Was the bread not to your liking?”

“The bread is fine,” Caterine answered, rising to her feet, “but I’d like something else.” She stepped around the table and towards the girl. “You can give it to me.”

“Yes, milady? What is it?”

“Hold still,” Caterine whispered. She didn’t want to kill this girl. She wanted to do this carefully. “This may hurt.”

Leaning down and tilting her head, Caterine held the girl’s shaulders and bit carefully into her neck. There was no savagery here, not like there was when the old woman mangled her arm, and not like when Caterine shredded the audience of her failed execution. No, Caterine tried very hard to be gentle, sucking from the little punctures and attempting to prevent too much mess with her lips. The girl barely gasped, to her credit. When Caterine felt the warm buzz begin to flush her body, she pulled away from the girl’s neck with a wet pop. It looked like she might faint, and she felt a bit unsteady on her feet, so Caterine carried her to the stool she’d been sitting on, sat her down, and leaned her head forward to rest on her arms on the table. 

“You’re not going to remember this as anything but a dream,” Caterine said gently, stroking the girl’s hair. “What a strange dream this was. Nothing more than that.”

The girl’s eyes drooped closed, and she was soon sleeping. Caterine inspected her neck, pleased to see that, yes, it looked like the wounds from her bite would clot and heal on their own. She’d learn tomorrow if she’d really succeeded. For now, Caterine made her way back to her own rooms.


End file.
